Sub-optical-cycle light-matter energy transfer in molecular vibrational spectroscopy

The evolution of ultrafast-laser technology has steadily advanced the level of detail in studies of light-matter interactions. Here, we employ electric-field-resolved spectroscopy and quantum-chemical modelling to precisely measure and describe the complete coherent energy transfer between octave-spanning mid-infrared waveforms and vibrating molecules in aqueous solution. The sub-optical-cycle temporal resolution of our technique reveals alternating absorption and (stimulated) emission on a few-femtosecond time scale. This behaviour can only be captured when effects beyond the rotating wave approximation are considered. At a femtosecond-to-picosecond timescale, optical-phase-dependent coherent transients and the dephasing of the vibrations of resonantly excited methylsulfonylmethane (DMSO 2 ) are observed. Ab initio modelling using density functional theory traces these dynamics back to molecular-scale sample properties, in particular vibrational frequencies and transition dipoles, as well as their fluctuation due to the motion of DMSO 2 through varying solvent environments. Future extension of our study to nonlinear interrogation of higher-order susceptibilities is fathomable with state-of-the-art lasers.